People have been predicting the imminent resignation of Alberto Gonzales for a month or more. I'm sure someone had some kind of Front-Page posting offering a prize for guessing when Gonzales would retire.
In the wake of the AG's recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the calls for his resignation have come from increasingly prominent sources, including some Republican Senators. This has further fueled speculation that resignation cannot be long delayed.
He has undoubtedly disgraced himself and criminally degraded his office, but it doesn't follow that his resignation is imminent. In fact, Gonzales will serve out the remainder of his term unless removed by impeachment or genuine physical incapacity (e.g., death).
I'm not the only person around here who thinks this, as recent diaries by Faust and dbratl attest. And there is some interesting discussion over at TPM Cafe to this effect. But I don't see anything like this from leading bloggers, to say nothing of the MSM and Congressional leaders, who all seem bound by the Conventional Wisdom on Cabinet Officers, which might be summarized:
Cabinet Officers always resign in the face of controversy of sufficient magnitude.
Calls for resignation from Senators of the Administration's own party certainly come under this heading.
Anyone who accepts the CW on this point is playing into the Administration's hands. The Bush Administration has changed the rules of political engagement. They have repeatedly signalled their intentions to not yield an inch to Congressional oversight and their MO bears this out. The statement from the White House that:
... the Attorney General continues to have the President's full confidence.
needs to be taken at face value.
The gist of the CW is that without the confidence of the public (especialy as represented in Congress), a Cabinet officer cannot do his job. But from the White House perspective his job is to:
- follow orders from the White House
- protect the inner workings of the White House from scrutiny
Gonzales has done both.
The stonewalling, the underlying facts of the US Attorney purge, the lost e-mails all point to the conclusion that: the White House is a criminal conspiracy of the deepest dye. The facts we can see (bad as they are) are nothing compared to what could be discovered with even moderate access to primary documents.
This is not like Watergate where the crimes where relatively trivial, ad hoc and peripheral to the main governance of the Administration. Here, the crimes are systematic, pervasive and persistent. The crimes are the purpose of the Bush Administration.
If you accept the conclusion, then the White House can only have one strategy: Run out the clock. If they can hold the fort through the end of the term, they will be largely untouchable.
As long as Gonzales remains in office, the controversy centers on him. The White House escapes scrutiny.
The opinions of Republicans in Congress are just so much noise. A Gonzales resignation would be a huge boon to them. Their electoral woes are multiplied if they have to choose between joining Democrats in impeachment proceedings or supporting the White House.
It remains to be seen how far and fast the Democrats in Congress are willing to move. But I suspect even they will not have much stomach for a Constitutional showdown if this drags on into a Presidential Election Year. If they don't make much headway by Thanksgiving, the game may be over.